At the age of 51, Jesse Whitaker began drawing pencil sketches of his memories of being a schoolboy in eastern North Carolina. The collection of his sketches that follows and his accompanying thoughts about the events taking place during that time are vehicles through which southerners can understand his life and his sense of place within the history of the South. Whitaker understands the politics of growing up Black in eastern North Carolina, and subtly expresses social norms in his depictions of Jim Crow North Carolina.